Recording issue with multiple monitor systems

optodata

Senior Contributor Location: California, USA Joined: Sep 16, 2011 16:04 Messages: 8630 Offline

Solved by

Dec 13, 2019 13:55

I've encountered some issues when using Screen Recorder2 and 4 when trying to capture non-full screen areas. All screenshots here are from SR4.

At the core of these issues is the setting that determines which monitor SR2/SR4 will be recording. This option makes perfect sense when recording full screen, but there are problems with how it's implemented when non-full screen options are chosen:

The good news is that the primary monitor is highlighted in the yellow dotted outline whenever SP is launched, and as long as you make sure that whatever you're recording is located on that monitor, everything will work normally.

The bad news is that nothing alerts you that the recorder will record a blank video (with system audio) if you choose any non-full screen option on another monitor. The only way to get the correct video from there is to also change this setting in SR.

The UX will let you click on any app or window on any monitor (when you click on "Lock to app"), and it will happily allow you to draw a custom recording rectangle (if you click on "Custom"), even when you do that on another monitor that SR will not record. The yellow dotted outline is clearly shown and there is no indication whatsover that you're now completely wasting your time.

Everything looks normal, and it isn't until after you finish the recording that you'll find that the video is completely black because you didn't change the SR monitor setting to Secondary or Third.

It seems to me that SR2/4 should do one of two things in these situations:

Prevent the user from selecting any object or creating any recording window on any monitor besides the one that it's currently set to record. This will force the user to go to the Settings menu and manually change Monitor setup to the correct display

Alllow the user to draw or select anywhere (as is currently the case), but then have SR2/4 automatically adjust the monitor setting to record the user specified content

Either approach would be better than the current situation, and I would strongly vote for the second option, since that's how the app appears to work right now. Also, it doesn't require the user to stop what they're doing and dig down into the settings to change monitors.


Filename	Lock to app recording fail.jpg	Download
Description	Non-primary monitor = FAIL
Filesize	410 Kbytes
Downloaded:	56 time(s)


Filename	Lock to app recording success.jpg	Download
Description	Primary monitor = OK
Filesize	380 Kbytes
Downloaded:	62 time(s)

optodata

Senior Contributor Location: California, USA Joined: Sep 16, 2011 16:04 Messages: 8630 Offline

Dec 13, 2019 14:09

This was a nightmare to originally post. I tried 4 times using 2 different browsers, and would even see the topic briefly appear on the forum, only to disappear when the upload finally failed.

It turns out that my two attachments were originally PNGs that were 2.4MB and 1.2MB in size, and apparently the forum choked on them. I finally got this posted by switching to much smaller JPG versions, and it would be SO helpful to have any amount of feedback from the forum software for situations like this, perhaps a simple message stating "Attachment size is too large"

Bronze_F

Newbie Joined: Aug 04, 2015 21:31 Messages: 16 Offline

Dec 16, 2019 04:32

I found the Custom mode recorded the video fine from my custom selected area no matter on which monitor (need not to change the monitor setup settings first). Perhaps you can use this mode for recording app window as a workaround.

optodata

Senior Contributor Location: California, USA Joined: Sep 16, 2011 16:04 Messages: 8630 Offline

Dec 16, 2019 12:47

Which version of Screen Recorder are you using? As I wrote in the OP, SR4 records a blank window on the non-selected monitor when I choose Custom:

I've attached the recording and you can see it's completely blank

Filename	20191216093211.mp4	Download
Description	blank custom recording
Filesize	2565 Kbytes
Downloaded:	951 time(s)

Bronze_F

Newbie Joined: Aug 04, 2015 21:31 Messages: 16 Offline

Dec 17, 2019 01:51

My version is 4.2.0.7437.

I'm wondering that the condition might not occur if you record the desktop (custom area) directly, but not the UWP game screen.
Screen Recorder has a game support list. Certain game screen might not be recordable because of compatibility.
https://www.cyberlink.com/support/product-faq-content.do?id=23822&prodId=372&prodVerId=-1&CategoryId=-1&keyword=

optodata

Senior Contributor Location: California, USA Joined: Sep 16, 2011 16:04 Messages: 8630 Offline

Dec 17, 2019 18:26

Quote My version is 4.2.0.7437.

Maybe the bug has only appeared in the latest version, which is 4.2.3.8860.

The nice thing about the Custom frame is that it (is supposed to) record whatever pixels are in that location on the screen, regardless of whether they're coming from an app or the desktop. If I move the same game to the primary monitor, everything works as expected:

Filename	20191217152102.mp4	Download
Description	Primary monitor custom = OK
Filesize	1230 Kbytes
Downloaded:	931 time(s)